The Thousand and One Nights was first edited for British administrators in Calcutta

Evidence

The founding in 1800 of the College of Fort William in Calcutta was one fruit of their policies. The College not only taught Greek and Latin, but also Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi and Bengali. Most of the teaching was done by munshis (native language teachers). Fort William also published some texts in Arabic, including in 1814–18 an important edition of The Thousand and One Nights (known to specialists in the field as Calcutta I). Later, after Fort William had closed, Sir William Hay Macnaghten, the greatest linguist ever produced by the College, published a second edition. Both editions, with their colourful stories of magic, adultery and treasure hunting, had been produced as texts to be studied by administrators seeking to improve their Arabic. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 284

Categorization

• QUESTION: Curious: the most literary and scandalous text of the Nights was first issued as a utilitarian textbook for colonial administrators — a strange instrumentalization worth examining.